TYCHICUS tĭk’ ə kəs (Τύχικος, fortuitous), a close friend and valued helper of the Apostle Paul. He and Trophimus were the two Asian Christians chosen to bear the collection to Jerusalem (2 Cor 8:19ff.) along with six other delegates who accompanied Paul on this mission (Acts 20:4-6).

Tychicus was with Paul during his first Rom. imprisonment and was entrusted with the important mission of delivering the letters to the Ephesians (Eph 6:21) and the Colossians (Col 4:7-9) with instructions to inform them of Paul’s welfare and to encourage them. Traveling with Tychicus was Onesimus, the runaway slave of Philemon, whom Paul was returning to his master in Colossae. The presence of Tychicus would reduce the possibility of harsh treatment to Onesimus and give Tychicus opportunity as Paul’s representative to mediate personally between the slave and his owner.

Paul purposed to send either Artemas or Tychicus to relieve Titus in the oversight of the churches on the island of Crete, that Titus might be free to join the apostle at Nicopolis (Titus 3:12). Tychicus is thus seen laboring again with Paul after the latter’s release from his first imprisonment. Loyal and useful to the end, Tychicus was dispatched during the second Rom. imprisonment to Ephesus (2 Tim 4:12) to care for the churches in and around what was prob. his native home (Western text has “Ephesians” for “Asians,” Acts 20:4). This would free Timothy to rejoin Paul who desperately wanted to see him before the apostle met his fate as a martyr for the Gospel (2 Tim 4:9, 21). The NT portrays Tychicus as a man whose ability and experience commanded respect and authority as an apostolic delegate. He justifies Paul’s high regard for him as “a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord” (Col 4:7).